


Fits And Starts

by moonix



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: And a lil bit of masturbation, Communication, Consent n stuff, Demi Neil, M/M, Neil coming to terms with his sexuality, Neil's a bit lost but he figures stuff out, Porn with Feelings, Probably not even porn lbh, Sex is hard and confusing, Sorry Not Sorry, all the good shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 10:30:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13479633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonix/pseuds/moonix
Summary: It's not a test. He isn't waiting to see when Andrew will crack, doesn't watch the bar more than usual when they go to Eden's; doesn't even think much about it at all until Nicky corners him in the bathroom at Sweetie's one night and asks, with a honey-smug smirk, about their sex life.





	Fits And Starts

**Author's Note:**

> I have no beta and no excuse other than I've been [wanting to write](https://annawrites.tumblr.com/post/168049008234/idk-but-ive-noticed-this-weird-thing-where-in-a) something about Neil struggling with sex for a while now. I'm not sure if it really came out right but... I tried (TM).
> 
> (There are some mentions of Roland but no jealousy or cheating is involved.)

“What would you do if I stopped wanting to have sex with you?”

The shot glass in Andrew's hand stutters for the briefest of moments before it resumes its trajectory. Andrew knocks it back, drops the empty glass on the tray with the others and sweeps his gaze over their immediate surroundings before settling it on Neil like a spotlight.

“Is that a no?” he asks, slow and precise like a knife.

“It's not a no,” Neil says. “Just a hypothetical.”

Andrew snorts. “Then don't ask stupid questions.”

Neil plucks the next shot glass out of his hands without touching him and sips at it. The bitter burn of the alcohol curls uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach.

“Would you go elsewhere for it?”

He looks over toward the bar, where Roland is mixing drinks and joking around with a rather inebriated Nicky. They've started taking the other Foxes with them to Eden's occasionally, but tonight it's just them; Kevin and Aaron lost on the dancefloor and Nicky flirting his way through another free cocktail, sticky and sweaty and _happy_. Neil pushes his unfinished shot back on the table and tries to swallow down the sour aftertaste of it – or maybe of the question that still seems stuck between his teeth even after he's asked it.

Andrew takes his time thinking about it and finally says, “Maybe.”

Neil nods and picks up his shot again. This time Andrew steals it back before he can drink, then flicks him an unimpressed look.

“Stop thinking so much,” he says, “You'll hurt your head.”

“Distract me,” Neil challenges, reaching out a hand but stopping short of Andrew's collar until Andrew takes it and tugs it the rest of the way down. He curls his fingers in the soft, sweat-damp material of Andrew's black shirt and pulls. They meet halfway for a kiss that tastes like whisky and stale words, and Neil loses himself in the unspoken promises of Andrew's tongue and the curl of his big, calloused palm around the side of his face, thumb dabbling in the strands of hair at his temple, until Nicky comes back and breaks their bubble of imagined privacy with a wolf-whistle.

They don't touch again that night, and Neil twists himself up small on the edge of Andrew's bed in Columbia, hugging himself and trying to make a nest of the tangled wool of his thoughts. Sleep doesn't come easy.

+

It's not a test.

Neil just doesn't feel like sex the week after, and they have practice and games and classes and new Foxes to keep in line, and every time Neil takes his shirt off he feels like stripping his skin off right along with it. The changing rooms at the court have gotten much more crowded this year and he sticks to the shower stalls to get changed and locks himself in the bathroom at the dorms. Andrew doesn't say anything. Some nights they smoke and kiss on the roof, but the one time Andrew's hand slips questioningly under the hem of Neil's shirt, Neil pulls it back out and that's that.

It's not a test. He isn't waiting to see when Andrew will crack, doesn't watch the bar more than usual when they go to Eden's; doesn't even think much about it at all until Nicky corners him in the bathroom at Sweetie's one night and asks, with a honey-smug smirk, about their sex life.

Neil blinks and frowns, takes his time drying his hands on paper towels.

“No offense,” he says, “But none of your fucking business.”

Nicky croons and blocks his way to the exit. “Neil, come on. I'm just looking out for you. Andrew is experienced, you're not – I just thought you might want to talk to someone who knows about this stuff and who won't judge you for asking questions. When I first got together with Erik, I could've really used someone like that, you know? So I'm offering my services.”

“I don't need your services,” Neil says bluntly. He was planning on looking up some stuff on Kevin's laptop at some point. He'd rather cut out his tongue with his father's old cleaver than talk to Nicky about it, and he knows Andrew feels the same.

“Well, if you ever do, you know where to find me,” Nicky says, his smirk simmering down to a small, bittersweet smile. “You know, there's no shame in-”

“Thanks,” Neil says, sounding anything but thankful, and pushes past him to get out.

His appetite is gone when he returns to the table. Andrew finishes off his fries for him and Neil drinks his lemonade and chews on his straw and seethes, quietly, about Nicky's nerve and the fact that he may be half-right in that Neil can't talk to Andrew about everything. Doubt fizzes like soda in his stomach, because Andrew said, “Doesn't mean I wouldn't blow you,” all those months ago but Neil doesn't actually know if Andrew gets anything out of giving Neil the occasional handjob when they're in Columbia or have the dorm to themselves. It's always Andrew who initiates, who goes the final step between a heated make-out session and putting his hand in Neil's pants, but the time in the shower after they got back from Baltimore is still the only time Andrew ever got off with him there.

It's been weeks since the last time they went beyond kissing. It's not that Neil doubts what they have; there is nothing to doubt between him and Andrew. But Andrew has different needs than him, and Neil doesn't want to keep him from exploring and reclaiming them after everything he's been through, which is why, when they've moved on to Eden's and are waiting for their drinks at the bar, he says: “You can hook up with Roland if you want.”

Andrew barely glances at him, looks at the gleaming bottles lined up behind the bar when he speaks.

“Do you get off on thinking about me with other men?”

“What? No,” Neil says, confused. “I'm just saying, if you need to-”

“I don't need anything,” Andrew says, bored. “Do not assume things about me. You are being more irritating than usual.”

Neil snaps his mouth shut and wonders what he did wrong. He's still glaring at the bar when Roland comes over to serve them, and Andrew clicks his tongue once and takes him by the arm, steering him away before Roland has even finished greeting them. They make their way through the dancers and the line outside the bathroom, Andrew carelessly shouldering his way through and Neil stumbling after him, until they reach a heavy door marked 'Staff only' and slip through into a dimly lit corridor. The music is muffled once the door falls shut behind them, but Neil can still feel the distant shockwaves of the bass like a vague itch in his limbs.

There's a store room at the back, stacked with more bottles and crates. It smells like dust and alcohol. Andrew hits a light switch and sits on a box before pulling out his cigarettes and motioning for Neil to join him. He likes that, likes moving Neil around like a doll, pulling and pushing and directing and arranging until he has Neil right where he wants him. Neil isn't sure what to feel about it – sometimes he likes it, too. Sometimes it makes him want to run.

Neil sits on a crate facing Andrew and waits. Andrew takes a drag off his cigarette, looks at him with hooded eyes and leans forward, bracing his arms on his knees.

“Talk to me.”

Neil chews on the pad of his thumb and doesn't know what to say. Finally, he settles on, “What did you used to do with Roland?”

“Roland, Roland, Roland,” Andrew sighs, tapping ash off his cigarette onto the filthy floor. “Why are you so obsessed with him tonight?”

“I'm not,” Neil says, tired. “I just want to know.”

“I got him off,” Andrew says casually and shrugs. “With my hands, or my mouth. Not much to it.”

He gestures around the room with his hand, the glowing tip of his cigarette. Neil almost expects to see a pair of padded cuffs lying abandoned on a shelf, but there's nothing.

“He ever get you off?”

“No,” Andrew says quietly, blowing out smoke.

“Why?” Neil frowns. “Why bother?”

He knows why, of course; knows that every touch on his own terms is a personal victory to Andrew, but he still doesn't understand. Jerking off is a miserable chore to Neil, and watching other people get off doesn't do anything for him. Usually. He thinks back to Andrew in the shower and feels a spark of something in his belly, something like curiosity.

“Contrary to what you might be thinking,” Andrew drawls as he finishes his cigarette, “It's hot. And it turns me on.”

The spark turns into a squirming heat and he has to look away. Andrew lets him be, stubs out his cigarette on a box of napkins and flicks it away. He gets up and trails his fingers along a shelf before wrapping them around the neck of a bottle of whisky. He is in the process of leaving the store room with his spoils when Neil calls out to him.

“Can I watch you next time?”

“Watch what,” Andrew says, clipped and on edge. Neil curls his fingers around his knees, the fabric of the skinny jeans Andrew picked for him too tight to bunch up in his fists.

“Watch you get yourself off,” he mumbles. “I'd like to.”

Andrew stands still and tense, not turning around. The moment uncoils slowly, and Neil tries and fails to swallow down the dryness in his mouth.

Finally, Andrew jerks back into motion and says, “Don't ask stupid questions,” which isn't a yes but also isn't a no. Neil watches him go and smiles, feeling lighter than before.

+

Neither of them brings up the subject again for a while. Neil is caught up in Exy, throwing himself into practice and talking to Dan about the dynamics of the new team and what it will take to make them come together like the old Foxes did last year.

“No gang wars,” Dan says sternly over sandwiches when they have lunch together one day, “No yakuza, no kidnappings, no torture, no murder. Those are the rules this year.”

“Hmm,” Neil hums. “You sure one of the new kids isn't secretly running from their deranged mob boss father?”

It feels weird, joking about it; something like hysteria ballooning in his chest. He shoves it down and Dan grins at him, wiping her hands on a napkin.

“We did our homework this time,” she says. When their sandwiches are gone Neil buys her a coffee and they take the long way back to the court, strolling across the campus green and debating whether meddling in one's teammates' fucked up love lives is a captainly duty or not.

“I'm just saying,” Dan mutters against the lid of her coffee cup, shooting him a pointed sideways glance. “You and Andrew have been acting... distant, lately.”

“We're not exactly the hand-holding type,” Neil huffs, exasperated. Renee's already been giving them weird looks all week.

“No, I know that,” Dan argues, “But you're usually always around each other, and Andrew's been really spaced-out at practice. Is everything alright?”

“We're fine,” Neil says, and Dan snorts and rolls her eyes but lets it drop.

Neil miraculously manages to get the dorm to himself that night – Andrew is out for a solitary drive and an ice-cream run, Nicky is studying with some of his classmates, and Kevin is spending some quality time with his dad watching a Trojans game on the big screen at the court. He tries to convince Neil to join them, but Neil insists he has homework – he does – and shoves him out the door before grabbing Kevin's laptop and holing himself up in his bunk.

He looks up some Exy news first to calm his nerves, gets a little lost in the stats and takes a break to change into sweatpants and get himself a smoothie from the fridge. Then he tries a few different search words, nothing too obviously explicit at first, and clicks himself through some articles and blog posts until he gets side-tracked again looking up the current score of the Trojans game.

He's just found a live stream of the game when Andrew comes back. Neil absently hears him rooting around in the kitchen and putting away his ice-cream, but his attention gets pulled back to the laptop when Jean gets a nasty check from an opposing player and crumples against the plexiglass wall of the court. His teammates are with him in seconds and the announcer is making dire predictions when Jean doesn't get up again right away. Neil scoffs at that, and a minute later Knox has pulled Jean back on his feet.

“Didn't you have homework?”

Neil starts as Andrew pulls himself up onto the bunk with him. He has a pint of Neapolitan ice-cream and two spoons, and turns the strawberry side to Neil as he starts decimating the chocolate and vanilla.

“Trojans lead five to three,” Neil informs him. “Seems like Jean's pulling his weight with his new team.”

“I don't care,” Andrew says, then seems to choke a little on his ice-cream as he flicks a bored look at the screen. “Neil.”

“Hmm?”

Andrew points at the cluster of tabs still open in the browser. Neil remembers them in the same moment with a jolt of horror and says, “Fuck,” before burying his face in a pillow. Half of those tabs are really, really obvious.

He lets Andrew pause the game and tug the pillow away from his face.

“I was just doing some research,” Neil groans, embarrassed and uncomfortable and _horrified_ to see that Andrew is calmly clicking through those tabs. “I wasn't – I don't – it's not that I – can you just close them?”

Andrew hums and continues to check the tabs, skimming over the articles. When he's finished, he closes them one by one, then meticulously wipes the browser history and pulls up a new page, tapping his fingers against the keys.

After a moment, he writes 'demisexual' and clicks on one of the search results before plopping the laptop back in Neil's lap and picking up his ice-cream again.

“Oh,” Neil says, and, “Ah.”

Andrew leaves him alone with the laptop, and Neil doesn't go back to the Trojans game for a good long while.

+

Having a word for what he might be and knowing that he's not the only one out there doesn't in itself make him feel any better, but it is useful information for the next time Nicky bugs him about it or one of the others looks at him with pity like he's somehow dysfunctional for not thinking about sex twenty-four seven. The fact that Andrew has done some research of his own is much more valuable to Neil and gives him the courage to suggest a trip to Columbia over the weekend after a game, just the two of them. Andrew raises an eyebrow and packs them a bag without comment.

They leave early on the Saturday and stop by a diner for breakfast. The sun is high and bright, the parking lot polished and gleaming in its light as Neil gazes out the window. There aren't many other guests around, no stares or whispers about his scarred face, and he feels more relaxed than he usually is in public, sitting there with Andrew in companionable silence while they eat.

It's midday when they get to the house. Andrew has turned off his phone after Kevin kept calling him, probably to complain that they went off on their own when they could be practising or maybe because he's missing out on a potential trip to Eden's. He carries their groceries into the kitchen while Neil opens the windows around the house, a soothingly domestic routine, before meeting on the porch for a shared cigarette and a soak in the sun.

“Pasta tonight?” Neil asks, passing over the cigarette. Andrew grunts and hands him his beer in exchange and Neil takes a few sips, not really liking it but not really hating it either.

For a while, Neil just watches the way the wind tousles Andrew's sunburnt hair and the lack of tension in his face. He's good-looking, Neil thinks; not the striking, flashy kind of good-looking like Kevin or Allison who are everyone's type, but something much more specific. Or maybe that's just because Neil's type is literally just Andrew – he's not attracted to Aaron, after all, and they still look almost the same even though they're anything but.

“Sex, yes or no?” Neil blurts out, because he hasn't felt like it in a month but he thinks he might feel like it now, and because Andrew's “Doesn't mean I wouldn't blow you,” wasn't exactly subtle either. Andrew seems amused and takes his beer back, tipping his head as he drinks and exposing the sharp, curved line of his throat.

He catches Neil staring and says, “No.”

“Oh,” Neil says, unsure how to feel about that but determined to respect it. “Okay.”

Andrew hooks two fingers around his jaw and pulls. Neil goes willingly and sighs into the kiss, shivers at the slow, lazy way Andrew licks into his mouth like he knows exactly what it's doing to Neil's already weak knees. Sex or no sex, he will always crave Andrew's kisses and the safety of Andrew's hand cupping his face.

“Later,” Andrew murmurs against his sticky lips and kisses him again. Neil feels suddenly hot, lit up from the inside at that one simple word, and when he moans into the kiss Andrew's grip on his collar pulls tight.

+

“Looks like I won't need to hook up with Roland after all,” Andrew says, later, when Neil is recovering from his second ever blowjob and feels about as boneless as he does after a really good game. Neil kept his shirt on but lost his pants somewhere on the way to the bed, while Andrew kept his pants on but took his shirt off. Seeing his strong, broad shoulders between his legs and holding on to them with Andrew's permission while he sucked him off was definitely helpful, Neil decides, giving the shoulders in question one last fond squeeze before Andrew scoots back up the bed and flops down next to him.

“Hnn,” Neil says, because that's all he's capable of producing word-wise at the moment. He wants to say that he can't make any promises, that just because he wanted it today doesn't mean he's going to want it tomorrow, but then he looks at Andrew and realises how silly he's being – that's the whole point of their yes-or-no game, after all.

“Andrew?” Neil says weakly, after he has his breath back. “It's not always yes.”

“Finally you get it,” Andrew mutters, tracing one of Neil's scars through the fabric of his shirt. Andrew doesn't need to see them to know where they are, he has a perfect map in his memory. That more than anything makes Neil decide that he's fine with taking his shirt off after all.

“You're still here,” Neil notices after several minutes of lying there naked and letting Andrew map out his skin with his fingers.

“So I am,” Andrew says. He looks relaxed, almost languid; hair mussed from Neil's hands and mouth red and shiny from- well. Neil is a little bit mesmerised and a lot intrigued.

“Can I?” he asks.

“I don't know, can you?” Andrew mocks.

“Watch you,” Neil clarifies. Andrew sighs, a small burst of air against Neil's face where they've somehow moved into each other's orbit, almost close enough to kiss.

“If you insist,” Andrew says at last, sounding casual but not, and Neil is suddenly sure that Andrew's been thinking about this, has examined it from all angles and turned it over and over in his mind, has somehow come to the decision that they're going to do this, here, tonight.

Neil kisses him, hot and heady, trying to communicate that he appreciates it, that Andrew is and continues to be amazing, without actually saying the words and ruining it. Andrew huffs into the kiss and yanks him closer by the back of his neck, then shoves a hand in his sweatpants and starts jerking off.

He's quiet at first, same as in the shower, and seems determined to distract Neil with kisses. Neil is about equally as determined to get his mouth on Andrew's neck though, and wrings a choked-off sound from him when he does. Andrew's breath starts to stutter and Neil's stomach clenches almost painfully in shock as Andrew pulls his pants down around his thighs for better access. He's seen Andrew naked in the changing room, of course; but he's never let his eyes linger, and now he has full permission to watch him fisting himself roughly, the pink tip of his dick disappearing in the tight curl of his hand, thighs corded with tension, his neck flushed.

Andrew was right: it is hot, and Neil can only imagine how hot it would be if he was the one doing this to Andrew.

“Shut up,” Andrew growls before he can even say anything. Neil grins and mouths up his neck, making him shiver; Andrew uses his grip on the back of Neil's head to pull him off and up and kiss him again, sloppier now, stifling another unwanted noise on the way out. He holds his breath when he comes, lying completely still as he spills over his hand, and Neil watches without touching him except for the way Andrew's grip tightens painfully on the back of his neck and tries to commit it all to his memory in as much detail as he can.

“You know,” he says as Andrew pants and shakes just a little bit, eyes squeezed shut, “Your orgasm face looks a lot like your ice-cream face.”

“I hate you,” Andrew says, but some of the tension is draining from his body and he opens his eyes to glare at Neil, which is at least a slight improvement.

“Doesn't mean I wouldn't blow you,” Neil shoots back reflexively, meaning it as a joke, but the way Andrew's eyes widen for the briefest of moments makes him think that maybe he should say such things more often.

Look where it got him last time, he thinks smugly, glancing down at Andrew's come-smeared hand.

Andrew gets up abruptly and stalks out of the room. The bathroom door slams shut behind him and the water cuts on, and Neil rubs his face against the pillow that smells like Andrew's aftershave and shampoo and thinks about some of the things he looked up on Kevin's laptop. Maybe they won't need to involve Roland, after all.

It might not always be a yes, but it is sometimes, and that's enough for Neil if it is for Andrew.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is appreciated!


End file.
